Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to electronic commerce and, more particularly, relates to a system and method for facilitating purchases by one person for another person.
Related Art
It is often desirable for one person to have another person make a purchase for them. This can be done when one person cannot or does not want to go to a store and the other person is going to the store anyway. For example, one person may need eggs and milk to bake a birthday cake. The other person may be going to the supermarket for their own reasons. It would often be desirable to have the other person pick up the eggs and milk. In this way, the person baking the birthday cake does not need to make a special trip to the supermarket just to pick up these products. The other person can be a friend, relative, neighbor, or co-worker of the person baking the birthday cake.
By having others make such purchases, money can be saved (such as the money needed to buy gas for the trip to the store) and pollution can be decreased (such as the air pollution caused by burning the gas on the way to and from the store). Further, by having others make such purchases convenience can be greatly increased. On a larger scale, other advantages are possible. For example, traffic congestion can be mitigated.
Social networks are well known. Social networks allow members to readily communicate with each other. By using a social network, messages can be quickly disseminated to a large number of people, e.g., members of the social network. It would be desirable to take advantage of one or more social networks, so as to facilitate purchases by one person for another person.